To catch a falling star
by Mayqueen
Summary: The battle is won, the enemy is vanquished, the victor is dead. The wizard world has been saved, but that does not mean sorrow has ended. . Lots of different viewpoints on an earthshattering event. More chapters coming. SLASH implied
1. Fidelus

FIDELUS - RON'S STORY - CHAPTER 1  
  
It's been so long my friend that I'm afraid that I won't know you when I see you. The last time we met and laughed together was when we were both young, both idealistic and both pure. It's easy to be joyous when your life is unsullied, unblemished and untarnished. I know how time has changed me, I wonder how it's changed you, for change you it will. A very exacting surgeon is time, cutting away relentlessly at every dream, every vision that you are fortunate enough to be born with.  
  
I remember you with deep affection and deeper respect my friend. We have been through some times together and you were always the strong one. You were always the one with a strategy, with a plan to fall back on. You were always the focused one. Every dream we ever saw together, you were the one who set out to accomplish it. It was never easy for me to take the backseat, but I did it gladly for I believed in the genuine affection that you professed to have for me.  
  
I wonder if you are plagued with similar thoughts as the time to meet me again comes closer or whether you are too strong even to succumb to doubts. It is always uneasy to meet after many years have passed. So much to tell and so little to say. Yet I look forward to seeing you. I look forward to seeing the lines in your face, the gray in your hair, the slack in your body. I look forward to humanizing you, I look forward to bringing you down from the pedestal I've put you on.   
  
I have to stop myself from looking at my watch repeatedly. An oddly fidgety habit that you used to laughingly mock me about. Your censure used to mean so much to me. Even if it was merely childish torment, my oversensitive antennae used to prick up defensively. But you never realized that, did you? You were much too involved in your own rapidly evolving life.  
  
You'll never know that these provoking ideas have passed through my conscious sphere of thought. I have lived innumerable years trying to suppress them. All those years that I spend trying to grow out of your shadow, but never quite succeeding.   
  
You will never realize how nervous I am today, after so long. There are so many things I want to say to you, but I never will. You always avoided deliberate delving into your heart. Were you scared to search your soul? But of course you would never tell me. You are too keen on appearing wholesome, uncomplicated to the world, to me. A tower of strength.  
  
What did you do with your life, my friend? Did you spend it like I did, trying to live up to an unrecognized ideal? Or did you spend it running away from all confrontations? There are so many questions I need you to answer, my friend, and so many answers I'm afraid you will not be able to give. I am afraid my friend you will not be able to live up to the high standards I have set for you, and I am even more afraid that I will not be able to lower them   
  
Do you now concede that change is something to be wary of, not merely a parameter of progress. Oh, my friend why couldn't you have stayed by me. The simple life is not to be scorned. At least it ensures three meals a day and a moderately lengthy life.   
  
I believed in you my friend and I still do. It is because I believed in you that I let you go, and it is because I still do that I'm waiting here on this freezing day in December awaiting your return. Infallibility is something I've been warned about. But oh my friend I have cherished you so dear and so long.  
  
The wait seems interminable. I wile my minutes away wondering what your first expression will be when you alight. Will it be joy; I dare to tell myself or perhaps bewilderment. Even fear perhaps though it is difficult to believe. But I don't know you any more, do I? I'm merely trying to predict how you would have reacted.  
  
Have you ever been afraid my friend? Not the fear which comes from a tangible danger but a bitter terror which consumes you, which gnaws at your very innards inexplicably and unaccountably. It is devouring me, my friend. I dare not flee from it, for the fear that it may hurt me infinitely more if I do. At last I have been forced to do what you have always done my friend. I have been forced to tackle my problems myself.  
  
Chronologically we are so far and yet so close to death. Sometimes I'm scared to peer over my shoulder for the fear that it may be leering back at me. Are you scared of death my friend? You didn't used to be. I'm hoping you aren't. I would hate to ever see you suffer.  
  
I'm here to show you how much I love you. I'm here to show that time has not changed my fondness towards you. I don't want you to leave like you did last time, unsure of whether I wanted to see you again. I want you to know that I'm unchanging in this respect.  
  
  
Oh my friend, your train is coming in. Forgive me, my friend as the men in their black cloaks move forward to apprehend you. All I can say is that I am sorry. It's been so long and they were so exacting. I'm sorry if I betrayed your trust in me. All this that I have thought as I have waited to see you for the last time, I wish that I could say to you.  
  
You will never know what drove me to do what I did. You will never know how much I had to suffer. I will be there to see you hang and I know that behind the mask of black your eyes will be seeking me out, unforgiving. I cannot ask for forgiveness, I dare not beg your pardon.  
  
When you die remember me as a person who loved you truly. Remember me as a person who never wished you harm. Would you blame me for the miscalculation of the fates? I shall stand here in my sheltered dell as the wind keens its requiem for you. I shall weep, since they are tears you shall never see.  
  
I want you to know somehow before you die that I never meant you ill. I need to know that you still needed me. You came when I called. Did you come to answer or did you come to reprimand. There are so many things I need you to tell me, my friend. So many things I have to confirm.  
  
Your train draws ever closer, friend. My head is bowed in a shame I should not feel for they tell me that it was a good thing I have done. Judas did it, Brutus did it. Were they evil men? Don't condemn me, as I know you will. Understand me, as I know you won't.  
  
I see you now. You haven't changed as much as I expected. The city air has done you good. The wrinkles are subdued, the gray hair colored, the body toned. You are in your prime after all. That makes it so much more heinous, though I don't know why. I see the anguish in your face, though I'm too far to see. I feel it course through my veins. Forgive me my friend, for I knew not what I did.  
  
  
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	2. This too shall pass

THIS TOO SHALL PASS - HARRY'S STORY - CHAPTER 2  
  
Far away a star twinkles, bathing the sweetness of the autumn night in the light of its single ray. A beacon is kindest when the night is the most dark. That is what I come to you as, Love. That is what I would be to you, if you would let me. The night is at its deepest raven now, and you are alone. As am I! It will be morning, morning will come. But by the time night departs, so may we.   
  
Once I asked you if you loved me. Your answer was, that you did not know. Now I ask you, will you be loved by me? Now love is all we have. Love and faith! If the enemy comes, let him come. We will not go into the night afraid. Not as long as we have each other. Not as long as we can pray.  
  
I wonder what it is like to live in times of peace, in times of harmony. Sometimes I lie in bed and listen to myself breathe and think to myself that this is death, and then I think of you, and remember that this is life. I have been fighting all my life. Fighting for my memories, fighting for my duties, fighting for my friends. Tell me, what is it to live without struggle.  
  
I see myself fifty years from now - an old, withered man. I see myself as a man without a dream. That frightens me, love. Because it is a vision of what is good and what is right that has kept me alive so long. If I stopped believing I would die. Or worse still I would live, but without a soul.  
  
Once, I remember you asking me, what I believed a dementors kiss felt like. I remember too, telling you that I did not know. I was young then and less imaginative. Now I believe I know. It would be like having all you hold dear taken away in front of your eyes, and you must be mum as you watch it happening. The soul would leave you then, the heart would leave you.  
  
Don't leave me just yet. There is so much I need to say to you tonight. So many things I must confide in you about. Who knows whether we shall see tomorrow? Are you scared? Are you angry? I used to be both. Now I am just ... resigned. When he will come, he will come and no amount of preparation or worrying is going to make any difference. If I must, I will fight. If I must, I will die.  
  
Tonight the night sky is like it has always been. How dare it, you will say? Oh Love, you have always been the fighter, the one who tries to change what will never change. Today we are here, yesterday we were not, and tomorrow we may not be. But some things are constant. If they were not, how could we survive? We pin our hopes on that which never moves. That which does may betray us.   
  
Betrayal - I have grown up with betrayal. My father was betrayed by his friend, I was betrayed by mine. I have trusted you for I know in my heart that you will not betray me. But even if you do, I will love you, for love has no limitations or conditions. Job's words in the midst of his sorrow "Though thou slay me, yet will I love thee."  
  
No, Love, I do want to run. Run away from this world, which has been very harsh to me. There is a universe out there for me to explore. A universe which may have love and faith and truth. All those things that I have never seen before! But don't you see, that is something I can't do, if only because there are still people lighting lamps for me. Wherever I go, I will always be the boy who lived and there will be hymns sung for me and prayers breathed for me.  
  
Today we must part. Today there is very little that we can do for each other. But this I must say to you, you have always been there. To help me escape from Azkaban, to help me rebuild my life, to give me a new dream. It's always been you, Love. Do you doubt me?   
  
A long time ago my mentor told me that there was fear in me, fear and bitterness. The same qualities that had driven that blackest of men to do his dastardly deeds. If it weren't for you and for those other people who believed in me, I would have turned away. I don't know if I should thank you, or curse you. You made me choose between what was right and what was easy. Why is what is good always more difficult? I am weak now. So weak!   
  
If we survive tomorrow and the day after that and then a few days more, will you give me one more hope? The hope that when all this is over, you will still be here waiting for me. Perhaps I ask for too much. Perhaps I want too much. But can you blame me? Can you really blame me?  
  
It is time. I think I hear the armies, the squadrons of darkness, as they sweep down on us in their morbid magnificence. Their steeds emit fire, their eyes amusement. How can they laugh as they brutally butcher men, women, children? Are they not human? In the need to become superhuman, have they become subhuman? This is the difference betweens them and us, Love. We can never kill callously, however much we may want to, or need to.  
  
Leave now my love. You have made a bitter life less bitter, a tragic life less tragic. Be proud of that. Most lives boast of less. I cannot ask you to stay now. I have known from the beginning that this is my battle. I have always known that when the time comes I must fight alone. But I am resigned now. If I die, I will die a martyr, if I live, I live a hero. I go to do a far, far better thing, then I have ever done.  
  
Let me fight alone now, as it is my destiny. But remember, remember if anything should happen to me, do not grieve or weep, for Love, nothing lives forever and nothing lasts for long. This too shall pass. 


	3. Oh Captain, my Captain

OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN - HERMIONE'S STORY - CHAPTER THREE  
  
He is gone. The words are so stark, so complete, so final. Every sound I hear, I whip around hoping to see him again, to have his eyes smile back at me, to have his arms wrap themselves around my waist. And then I remember, and then it comes back to me shuddering and painful that I will never see him again. The real agony is that I don't even know if he is dead. Death, at least has a ring of peace to it, of eternal rest. And I know, know in my heart that peace is what he craved for the most. In all his troubled turbulent life, all he ever wanted was tranquility.  
  
Now he is lost, lost somewhere in the darkness outside. Lost and alone, and I know, somewhere deep within, that it is forever. I never got the chance to tell him how much I loved him, never, even when he poured out his heart to me, I never said a word. I always was the strong one, the intelligent, balanced one who kept things sane. I guess I was afraid that if I spoke, somewhere, on some level, that sanity would shatter. I thought we never needed sanity more than now, when sorrow was immanent, when pain pervaded our lives. I was wrong. It is when tragedy is at its peak that man needs to laugh most. But   
  
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,  
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won  
  
  
People are milling all around me now, celebrating, rejoicing. How can they be happy at a time like this? I answer myself - how not. They have been released from the deepest, gravest horror that could have consumed them. So many dead, so many martyrs in this war against evil. What difference can one more death make to the multitudes? But I mourn, and I know that I do not mourn alone.  
  
Listen to them sing outside, the jubilation, the joy, the glory. Listen to them as they celebrate the beginning of a new world.   
  
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores  
A-crowding,  
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.  
  
But you will never see them now. You will be a hero, and then a memory, and then you will disappear into the annals of time. You will be but a name - a name which will stir a chord in the heart of everyone who is true, kind and just.  
  
I remember telling you once that you were a great wizard. Later I was to reiterate by saying that perhaps you were the greatest. That was my mistake. Every time I spoke those words, you felt that my love for you was an infatuation, a childish hero-worship that would disappear with the coming of age, wisdom and experience. How wrong you were! I didn't love you because you were the Boy who lived. I loved you because in your eyes I could see the need, the hunger to be loved. I loved you because every time I held you, I was holding that wonderful person that I had known all my life. I had known…  
  
I shouldn't be so shattered. After all every time I let you out of my sight, it was with the knowledge that I might not see you again, but then again every time you proved me wrong. You were back smiling bright and wonderful, and it was like we had never been apart. You always seemed to convince me that you were invincible. I suppose you were. After all you did have an unconquerable soul.  
  
The same fire that drove you on to meet every challenge, to bridge every wall, the same fire that lit a nation. The fire that I saw every time I looked into your eyes. Can that fire be quenched by any evil? The one last hope that you have given me is that with your death, you have lit that fire in the hearts of millions of young wizards. You have given them an icon, an idol.  
  
Even as I say these words I see your eyes smile at me, soft and tender. Some are born leaders, some achieve leadership, some have leadership thrust upon them. All three are true of you. You would never have refused to be the warrior of the light, because you were never able to let anyone down. Your bitterest enemies couldn't help but respect you, and your friends couldn't help but adore you. Even the one man who you believed betrayed you did so under the deepest of duress.   
  
I never told you this, but I came to you in Azkaban only after receiving a letter from him. It was a letter which only could be written for you. It was the letter of a broken man, shattered by what he had done to the only reason he had ever really loved. It was a life gone waste, of a soul gone hollow and if you had read the letter, it would have broken your heart, as it broke mine. Then I had a heart which could be broken. Now it is lost in the nightfall with you.  
  
There are others who come to me now to commiserate on my loss. All those tragic eyes trained on me, none of them able to say the pitying words that would be appropriate at such a time. He came too, the man you held closest to your heart. Your guide, your mentor, your patron, of course he came. I hoped that he at least would be able to meet my eyes, but he too turned away. Now I am truly alone.  
  
He always told me that you would survive, and I suppose you did. You survived eternally in the form each man craves to survive in, each man but you. Bards will sing of you, poets will write of you, mothers will soothe their children with your name. But I, only I and a handful of others will remember you as something other than just the Boy who lived. We will remember you as the Boy who loved.   
  
So rejoice sweet world, rejoice for the new lease to life that has been given to you through the blood, sweat, toil and tears of so many, and in particular of one. Yes indeed,  
  
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!  
But I with mournful tread,  
Walk the deck my Captain lies,  
Fallen cold and dead. 


	4. Farewell, dear heart

FAREWELL DEAR-HEART - DUMBLEDORE'S STORY - CHAPTER FOUR  
  
Bright and beautiful, those were the words that leapt to my mind the first time I saw you. Standing amidst other first years, afraid, but still showing that kernel of self-confidence that was to blossom to such glorious magnitude in later years. You smiled at me then, at me sitting at the teachers table. Such a trusting smile, a smile which promised everything. It was a promise you so ably fulfilled. You were perfect as a student. Studying hard but never too much, always performing so brilliantly... in everything.  
  
Maybe I was a little in love with you, though it would have taken wild horses to get me to admit to that. Maybe your touchingly confiding air melted my naturally susceptible heart, that and the unquestioning belief you seemed to have in my infallibility because I had defeated a dark wizard. Your fear was palpable, your terror of the dark. Perhaps because you had been exposed to it so young and so long.   
  
I remember our first long talk. If only I had given you answers instead of more questions, if only I had given you sympathy instead of recrimination maybe things would have been different. But I wasn't sure if you were prepared and I was even less sure whether I was. So every time we talked, there was something left unsaid, something left undone.  
  
I know, I realize how much it is my fault. I appreciate that there was a time when you trusted me implicitly and it breaks my heart to think that that in some way, some unknown, unseen way I let you down. Let you down from the minute I set eyes on you. I let you; knowingly let you stay with the people who hated you so much. I evaded your questions, I let you grope your way through the corridors of a tragic life, and I didn't, when I could have I didn't, give you what you needed most - a helping hand.  
  
Everyone sees what you have become - a hero, a martyr. No one, but I appreciate what you could have been - a fine individual. I and perhaps one other - the woman you loved and who loved you in return.  
  
Under my eyes you grew up, the three musketeers. The Hogwarts Trinity, always together, always loyal, almost to the end. You were always the leader, the one who commandeered every wild escapade, every mad caper. She was the planner, the intellect behind the technical details, the expert in strategies. He was the follower, the committed plodder, deeply loyal, fiery tempered.   
  
I also saw so much that your loving eyes missed. I saw his adoration for you, his hero worship for you, grow day-by-day, increase beyond the limits of sanity. I saw her intent passion for you, hidden by her deep underlying insecurity. And I saw you, you as you came to terms with your fame, your power and your beauty. I saw and ached as your adolescent clashes matured into adult fights. I saw and rejoiced at the blissful reconciliations. Now I accept that I shall never see two of the musketeers again and the third will never be the same.  
  
I should have foreseen his defection. If you can see me, or hear me then know that I am sorry about this thing, more than about everything else. I said he was loyal, and so he was. But the unwavering trust of a true friend can often be as harmful as the malicious intent of an enemy. All he did, he felt so pained about, he died of a broken heart. No man wants to die, labeled a traitor and a deserter. He did it because he felt he deserved to go down in history thus. I know that in your mind you could never forgive him because it was too akin to what happened to your father. But in your heart, I believe, you forgave him a long time ago.  
  
Life has never been easy for you. I know that better than anyone else because my life has been inextricably joined to yours. I have been to you what Merlin was to Arthur. Merlin failed as I failed. But we both had that hope, which I repeat constantly to myself today, our redeemer will return. It is a faint hope, but nevertheless it keeps an old man alive. And today I feel older than I ever imagined I could feel. I feel empty.  
  
I saw your light of love today. I let her down as I let you down. I could see that I had something to say, but the words would not come. The words were warped and twisted into meaningless platitudes as they left my lips. I could see the disappointment in her eyes, as I have seen it so often in yours. Again I have been unworthy.  
  
I saw a person today whom I felt that I would never see again. Your erstwhile nemesis, your former adversary. With your sense of irony you would appreciate that he came to pay his condolences. He looks the same, sneering, scornful, bitter. But I sensed that something in him has changed, some dam has broken. His eyes were fearful.  
  
He spoke of you, as do they all today. Only when he spoke of you, did his face soften, his eyes shadow, his lips part. I remember you telling me once that if he were not an enemy, he could be a dear friend. But what can be done if the chosen path is the wrong one? Here is another victory to be chalked in your book, you have changed a mans direction in life.  
  
Be proud dear-heart. As you venture into the Elysian Fields be proud. You have proved yourself to be their equal, if not their superior. Be kind in death, as you have been in life and forgive me my foolish mistakes, my misguiding, my disappointment as an example. I am only human, and as a human I sin, and as a teacher I fail.  
  
They say that I must write you an obituary - their words are that it should be from one great man for another. But what, what requiem, what epitaph can a father pen for his son? Just this - Dearest heart, farewell! 


	5. Whom Jesus came to save

WHOM JESUS CAME TO SAVE - DRACO'S STORY - CHAPTER 5  
  
I hate being me. I look in the mirror and I see a face I detest, I speak and hear a voice I detest, I touch and feel a skin I loathe. I am the man I least wanted to be. I am my father. I have spent a wasted life, fighting against my inclinations and my desires. I would blame it on ill fortune, if I did not know that Lady Luck was not fickle, I was. I realize my perfidy most when someone mentions him in front of me. Every time I hear his name, followed by the common suffix of savior, something tears within me.  
  
I remember with an untoward vividness the first time I met him. Slight, short, with a smile that made even my heart melt enough to address him and eyes that were pools of wonder. He was so shy, so insecure, but even in that scared boy I could see the seeds of the man he was to become. Even the Eaters of the Dead, the Dark Lords own lackeys had a soft spot for him. It was impossible to resist him.  
  
I watched him grow from a distance into a self-confident, handsome man with a quality far less tangible than good looks. I saw his love for the muggle girl and his affection for his dearest friend - the traitor. I cannot think of him in any other way. I was there the day my father and his comrades bullied that miserable defector into confessing. He broke like a reed. What use are apologies after stabbing a friend in the back? At least he understood that. He killed himself.   
  
After his friends disloyalty I saw him emerge a stronger person. The boy had in truth become a man. But in him were the qualities that had made the boy so attractive. That disarming air of honesty and kindness, that his mentor had inculcated in him. Even to me, his bitterest enemy, he was patient, forbearing. Once he said to me, on a rare occasion when we had a conversation without scrapping, "We will always be enemies, not because we hate each other, but because we have different goals. In the achievement of those goals, we will clash, but know, that under different circumstances, in different lives we could be friends."  
  
With those words ringing in my ears I went today, gathering my courage in my hands to meet my former teacher, his patron to address him. I found the old man much changed. I saw, for the first time, his hands shake as he bade me to sit. In his eyes, I noted, tears which seemed to be forever unshed. He spoke to me about the one person we had in common and my heart seemed to melt within me.  
  
Afraid to show weakness, as I have always been, I hastened away. I stood at the door to collect myself. I have never allowed myself to show emotion. I would not start now. I strode down the familiar corridors expecting his shadow to swiftly pass me by. Not the shadow of the man I admired, but the shadow of the boy I loved.   
  
Another shadow glides out instead. A live shadow. My old teacher, his antagonist. We shake hands warmly, seeing in the others eyes, the reflection of our own thoughts. No words are necessary. We look for a couple of seconds more and then turn away as if afraid to see any more.   
  
I leave even earlier than I thought I would. There is nothing here for me, but memories. Salt-sweet memories which wash over me in waves of agony. I toy with the idea of visiting the love of his life, the muggle girl. I dismiss the thought almost immediately. She has never liked me, distrusted me instinctively and at a time like this she would prefer not to see one who fought on the other side.  
  
The other side. Why did I fight for the Dark Lord? I ask myself this question more and more often as time goes by. Why did I not respond to the plea that the light side made to me? I answer automatically, conditioning. My father cajoled me, scolded me, beat me, bribed me to join. From childhood I had been trained for the dark side. When the offer was made to me I was too young to break away. When I was ready, it was too late. The war had begun.  
  
I did as I had been trained to do. I thought I was a rebel, I was wrong. I was just conforming to the norms set by my father, his father before him, and his father before that. No man is a rebel unless he can break away. I just broke down.  
  
Now I am sorry for all that I have done, sorry that I have sinned. Is it too late for me? I wish he was here now, so that I could fall to my knees and beg him to show me the light. But, as always, it is too late for me. I want to tell him that he has succeeded, that now we can be friends, but I will never say those words to him now.   
  
In our conversation, our erstwhile headmaster gave me one ray of hope. He told me that there was no certainty, that no one knew for sure whether the boy who lived had surely died. He said that no one that powerful could die so easily. Maybe he was trying to console himself as much as he was trying to placate me. I don't know and it does not matter. With hope he gave me one more thing, he gave me a purpose for living. I know what I will do for the rest of my life. I have a mission. If he is alive, I will find him and restore him to the world. At last I have a task to accomplish on hand, and for him I would do so much more. Tonight I leave, and until he is found I shall not return. I shall search all land and sea and air. He must be alive, he has to be alive. I need him if I am to live again with myself, if I am to be at peace. I must save him, because only he can save me. 


	6. Bridges are meant for burning

SNAPE'S STORY - CHAPTER 6  
  
I am reliving a nightmare. Over and over again, it is coming back to haunt me. They say that evil deeds can do that to the mind, break it and distract it until no picture but one shows itself in the frame of the conscience. But I never did anything wrong. Nothing wrong that I was aware of. Ever since that great man, the idol of the wizard community, took it upon himself to refute the fact that I had been a follower of the evil side, I have scrupulously refused to be wavered or shaken. But today I believe I am shattered. Today of all days, when the rest of the Wizard Community is celebrating, I am mourning.   
  
I never thought that his loss would be so agonizing, so excruciatingly painful. He was always there, like his father before him, an eternal thorn in my side. So confident, so beautiful, so effortlessly successful at every endeavor. Every time I looked at him I seemed to see the ghost of his father laughing back at me. Perhaps that is the reason I treated him with such contempt, even with disdain. I never got the chance to tell him that I never hated him, that my anger was not towards him but towards the people of whom he was irrevocably a part - his parents.  
  
I never disliked his father. I ached to be friends with him, to share his confidences, to laugh at his jokes. But that was not to be. He was always with his own particular clique, as earth-shatteringly intelligent and popular as he. They treated me with scorn, with amused ridicule. Always sensitive I drew away from them. I became an outcast. I became a student of the dark arts. I learnt all I could to hurt them, and especially him. And when I succeeded, I found that it was always myself I had been hurting. Why did he always turn away? God only knows. He never knew how much it hurt me, his careless contempt. But I know in my heart that if I had made the first advance, met him halfway we could have been close, we could have been friends. But for me it was always all or nothing.  
  
But if it were only his father, that popular scoundrel I saw in him, I could forget him more easily. I could remind myself of the mad pranks that his father played on me; I could remember all the names that I was called because of his mocking sense of humor. I could convince myself that I do not miss him. But things are never as simple as that. At least they are never that simple for me.   
  
In him, I also saw the one true love of a bitter, bleak life. I saw his mother. Every time he looked wonderingly with his eyes of forest green I remembered another pair of most beloved eyes who used to look at me with just that expression. In every comforting word he spoke, I heard the echo of the only person who deigned to speak to me like that. Every time I saw him I relived the glorious moments we were together, and the heartbreaking years of rejection that followed.  
  
Nobody knew how much I loved her. Sometimes I wondered whether even she knew. She was one of the few, very few people who used to treat me as a fellow human, rather than a pariah. I used to call her Flower, the blossom that had filled the barren garden of my life with the fragrance of her presence. We spent so many days talking till the sun sank tired and weary. We laughed and we wept over the small joys and tragedies that make youth such an earth-shattering experience. Those are the happiest recollections of an unhappy life.  
  
Then she fell in love. In love with him and in front of my eyes she was whisked away. She was taken into his kingdom of endless laughter and merriment. She still wished to be friends. Even then she defied her love. Even then she came to me, hoping to pick up the strings where she had in a moment of passion let them fall. She came to me looking for affection, I gave her scorn. She came to me looking for support, I gave her disdain. I spurned her, and I gave her contempt in return for his love. That was my sin, and now I pay.  
  
I pay with guilt, I pay with loneliness. Why was I so harsh, why was I so intemperate? Why did I cut her down with a ruthless knife? Did the moments we had spent together mean nothing to me? Seemingly not! Even as she walked away, a voice within me yearned to cry out - stop. Do not leave me. I need you and your affection as deeply as you need me. But I could not, for a voice within me cried out in cold pride and arrogance - she preferred another to you.  
  
Every time I saw him, the son of my Flower, I saw the son that might have been mine. I saw the son that I could have called mine own. How could I have hated him, when in him were bound the sweetest, dearest memories that I can bring to mind. But then in him I also saw the man who stole her away from me, and my heart was torn. To cover my confusion, to cover my bewilderment, I treated him with contempt. I taunted him, laughed at him derisively. But I swear to god, I loved him.  
  
Now he is gone and I will never have the chance to apologize. I will never look into those green eyes of his and say I love you, as I loved your mother. I will never be able to tell him about her, the tales that he has never heard about the mother he has never known. I will never be able to tell him, the only son I have had by proxy that he has made my life a better one simply by his presence. Why, why did I have to understand the meaning of the agony of my heart only after his death?   
  
Today, for me as for many, many others is a dark, sad day. I have broken the promise I had made to myself, the promise to protect him, the promise to defend him. This vow, the only true vow I have ever made to myself has been broken and with it has broken my heart. Forgive me, my Flower, I could not save your son for you. 


	7. The MiracleMerchant

GINNY'S STORY - MIRACLE-MERCHANT CHAPTER SEVEN   
  
What do I want most, you ask me today. What do I want so much that my heart shrieks for it, that my soul begs and grovels for it? Well, I answer you now, why should I want for anything when the prayers of most wizards have been answered? Why should I want for anything when we have just been liberated from the greatest threat posed to us by man or nature? Do I have the right to want for anything? Of course I do. Just because a single wish has been granted, does not mean that we top wishing for anything else. It doesn't mean we stop wishing for love, for friendship, for old times.  
  
Miracles happen, but miracles leave so many untouched. All they do is whisper in their ears that it could have happened to you. Miracles stopped happening to me a long time ago. Miracles stopped happening to me when the only man I had ever loved fell in love with someone else. Miracles stopped happening when I had to spend day after day, night after night gazing at him being held in someone else's arms - held like I always wished I could hold him. And now I know that a miracle won't happen when I need it the most - to bring him back to life.  
  
No one who has not suffered from unrequited love can know what it is like - to watch your hearts only desire being flaunted flagrantly under your very eyes, to watch as it grows ever more distant from you. It was an agony repeated every day, every damned day. He confided in me, told me about her, about the love of his life and I listened. I became for him the younger sister he never had. The one he could talk to, the one who he could laugh with, the one he could tease. What else could I do? I couldn't lose him. To be completely cut off from him, that would be suffering greater than my heart could take. And now it has happened.  
  
Every time I close my eyes I see his face float in front of me. I see that smile, that smile which won the hearts and the devotion of so many wizards, the smile that naturally inspired a man to lay down his life in its service. And as it is impossible to see his face without seeing their faces, I see the face of his love and the face of my brother - the holy triumvirate of our school.  
  
I grew up believing in his infallibility, hearing his legends and then I met him and in no way did he disappoint me. He was the kind legends are built on; he was the breed heroes are made of. No one could hate him, no man despise him. Even his greatest enemy had to admire him. And I, well I was content to love him from afar, to laugh at his joys, and to sympathize with his sorrows. I admitted, if only to myself, that he was above me in every way. But I also knew that he was above her.   
  
How to tell him now, to tell him that I cared, that I would have done anything for him? I think on some level he knew. On some subconscious plane he was aware that I would have gladly died for him. After all, he couldn't have forgotten my childish infatuation so fast, could he? But then, he never knew that the infatuation had matured into adoration.  
  
When I was told what my brother had done, I was torn. Torn between my sympathy for my brother and my love for him. I was the only one who knew the torture my brother had undergone in the ten years that we were apart. I knew the anguished letters he had written to his best friend every night and then torn to shreds. I and only I knew the tears he had shed in fear that he had been forgotten by the two people he was willing to die for, simply because they were so wrapped up in themselves. I knew of the crazed suicide note he had penned, driven almost to lunacy by that one damning act of his life. He was my brother, the brother who had protected me and loved me. I knew he was in the wrong, but I knew he did it because he hoped he could be in the right. I knew all this and I had to decide. I had to choose between my brother and my love. My love triumphed. I went to him. I told him that I was willing to fight for the cause that he had dedicated his life to, simply so that I could fight by his side, be by his side. Now I know that I will never be with him again. But neither will she. I derive some consolation from that. Bitter, bitter of me, I suppose love is a cruel mistress.  
  
I never hated her even though she took away the love of my life from me. I couldn't have. I saw how happy she made him and that was enough for me. But not even she could protect him from the fate that was his. The fate that condemned me to a living death. I know in my heart that she misses him as much as I do, I know that my brothers death hurt her as much as it hurt me, but I cannot forgive her for letting them die - both of them.  
  
Yes dead, they are dead. My brother dead, killed by his own hand, my love dead, killed by the devils that plagued him his entire life. Both the men who meant anything to me, who illuminated my life, dead! And you, you ask me what I want. Well I'll tell you then, I'll tell you what I want. Oh god I want, more than anything else I want to die. 


End file.
